InP-Bovine Serum Albumin Conjugates as Energy Transfer Probes

The use of indium phosphide (InP) quantum dots (QDs) as biological fluorophores is limited by the low photoluminescence quantum yield (ϕ_PL) and the lack of effective bioconjugation strategies. The former issue has been addressed by introducing a strain relaxing intermediate shell such as ZnSe, GaP etc. that significantly enhances the ϕ_PL of InP. Herein, we present an effective strategy for the conjugation of emissive InP/GaP/ZnS QDs with a commonly used globular protein, namely bovine serum albumin (BSA), which generate colloidally stable QD bioconjugates, labeled as InP-BSA and demonstrate its use as energy transfer probes. The conjugate contains one protein per QD, and the circular dichroism spectra of BSA and InP-BSA exhibit similar fractions of α-helix and β-sheet, reflective of the fact that the secondary structure of the protein is intact on binding. More importantly, the fluorescence polarization studies corroborate the fact that the bound protein can hold a variety of chromophoric acceptors. Upon selectively exciting the InP-BSA component in the presence of bound chromophores, a reduction in the emission intensity of the donor is observed with a concomitant increase in emission of the acceptor. Time-resolved investigations further confirm an efficient nonradiative energy transfer from InP-BSA to the bound acceptors.